Egyptian Mummy's Brain Imprint Preserved in 'Peculiar' Case

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An ancient Egyptian mummy is sparking new questions among
archaeologists, because it has one very rare feature: The blood
vessels surrounding the mummy's brain left imprints on the inside
of the skull.

The researchers are trying to find what process could have led to
the preservation of these extremely fragile structures.

The mummified body is that of a man who probably lived more than
2,000 years ago, sometime between the Late Period and the
Ptolemaic Period (550 – 150 B.C.) of
Egyptian history, the researchers said.

"This is the oldest case of mummified vascular prints" that has
been found, study co-author Dr. Albert Isidro told Live Science
in an email.

But unlike his neighbors in the field, the inside of this man's
skull bore the imprints of his brain vessels, with "exquisite
anatomical details," for centuries. The prints were cast into the
layer of the preservative substances used during the
mummification process to coat the inside of the skull.

The imprints appear to have been made by the blood vessels within
the meninges, which is the membrane that covers the brain, the
researchers said.

"It is a truly remarkable finding and an interesting case," the
researchers wrote in their report on the mummy, published Sept.
19 in
the journal Cortex. To date, there have been only a few
anecdotal reports of similar cases, they said.

The mummy, dubbed W19, was preserved using substances such as
bitumen (a viscous oil) mixed with linen, the researchers found.
The imprints of the vessels on the skull bone mirrored the prints
on the mass of preservatives found within the skull, the
researchers said. It was most likely a brain vessel called the
middle meningeal artery that created the imprint, they said.

It is even possible that part of the man's actual meninges still
remain there, in the outermost layer of the preservative mass,
Isidro said. But the only way to know for sure would be to
rehydrate the tissue and look for microscopic signs of the cells,
he said.

During the
mummification process that the Egyptians followed, the brain
was removed, usually through the nose using wirelike instruments,
and then the inside of the skull was cleaned and filled with
preservative substances. It's unexpected for any brain tissue to
remain intact after these procedures, Isidro said.

In this man, something peculiar must have happened when his body
was being mummified, the researchers said.

"The conditions in this case must have been quite extraordinary,"
the researchers said. "We can speculate that something special
happened in individual W19 just at the moment of bitumen
insertion" into the skull.

But the researchers said they don't know what exactly happened.
One possibility is that the general conditions, such as the
temperature or the acidity, of the preservative, were different
for W19 than for the other people whose mummies were found in the
same necropolis, Isidro said.

Although brain tissue is rarely found in artificial mummies who
undergo brain extraction, it has been discovered frequently in
natural mummies who were preserved in just the right
environment. For example, Europe's oldest mummy, Ötzi the Iceman,
had some brain tissue preserved, which revealed information about
the
circumstances of his death.

Editor's note: This article was updated on Sept. 30, 2014 to
include a new comment from the researchers about the possibility
that the actual meninges remain in the preservative.